Stunning Timelapse of Galactic Center passing over a Texas Star Party

OK, no pithy titles or clever sayings here - this video from William Castleman is truly gorgeous.

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

I'm glad that folks are still throwing star parties.

For those of you that have never been to one, they are at once highly geeky events akin to Star Trek conventions, enormous opportunities for learning and shared wonder, excuses to stand out in a field and drink beer/whiskey/hot chocolate, and wonderful chances to really understand what this universe is all about and how to observe and appreciate it.

When I was growing up in the 70's (1970's, smart ass) in northern Minnesota, the opportunity to have star parties were pretty plentiful - no light pollution (because who the hell would live up there) coupled with being basically equidistant between the equator and the north pole (think access to Aurora Borealis) and - lets face it - there being little else to do, led to 1-2 of these things a month. 20-30 people with the latest in telescopes, cameras, night vision gear, and beer (usually Hamm's) resulted in dozens of amazing experiences. Including non-astronomical experiences, such as the time that Dabs - my dad - nearly decked my high school astronomy teacher because he didn't quite get the concept of a grown man going out to a frozen field in the middle of the night with 20 highschoolers. (Thanks for not backing down, Dale!)

By the time I left that town when I was 18, I had seen eclipses (lunar and solar), meteor showers, transits, and more aurora displays then I can comfortably tell you about here. I learned how to photograph on night plates, constructed reflector telescopes (including spending a year grinding the primary mirror by hand), help fund-raise for a planetarium, and - later - helped run the projector at that planetarium.

Looking at this video from Monsieur Castleman brings back a lot of memories - as well as making me green with envy that I didn't grow up in an era of high definition digital video and GPS-based telescopes. Growing up in the waning years of photographic negatives, all of my equipment was extremely analog and required patience - instant gratification was out of the question, as you had to wait until at least the next day to process the photos or video...uh, film. It was only after I went to college later in that decade, I was able to construct a then-new charged-couple device (CCD) as project for an astronomy class. It was extremely expensive to build, and was a whopping 100x100 pixels, each able to hold 64 shades of gray - but it was a start. (Alright, Castleman, you got me there - but do you know how to process a photographic glass plate in a darkroom? Hah! No. No you don't!)

Even more important than the amazing view of the Milky Way rising in that video, however, is what you see along the horizon: people. Dozens of them milling about, their red flashlights (LED based, of course) coming on and off, configuring their laptops and calibrating their GPS-ized telescopes, checking exposure times, and drinking beer (probably Lone Star, not Hamms, since the video is from Texas). Star parties are still going on and are still popular, which means people and kids are still learning...which...gives me hope.

...well, at the very least it makes me feel better about the coming robot apocalypse.

The End of Human Life as We Know It: Great, Now They Don't Even Need an Exoskeleton

OK, yes - it's been 2 months since I have posted anything, despite my New Year's resolution to post once a week. (Hey, I've been occupied, ok? JOB. I have a JOB.... ok, fine... I also have a PS3. Like I said, I've been occupied!)

At any rate, I come with a warning. They've started to evolve. First they swam, then they could get back up when knocked down, now they don't even need metal. Seal the doors and windows, get the kids and the dogs in from the yard...

My Year With The Zune....

....comes to an end.

But before I go there - first my apologies at the lack of posts in January. As a twitter friend has been reminding me (daily, Maria!), I already blew my New Year's resolution to post weekly. Hey, I do have an excuse: I was moving cities again! (This time to San Francisco - and here I'll stay...well, at least for a while.)

Now, back to the end of the Rocket Zune.

As everyone who reads this little diatribe knows, despite all the jeers and being the butt of all jokes on this topic, I'm a Zune fan. What's more, I enjoy the Zune Marketplace a great deal - it's a pleasure to use, and gives me access to millions of DRM free MP3 files, and has a great interface for dealing with podcasts. Also, for as much maligning as "Welcome to the Social" has taken, the Zune is - well - extremely social. The built in social networking aspect of the Zune actually works well. No, I've never "squirted" (ew), but I have taken advantage of the LastFM-esque aspects of the Zune Marketplace. Discovered a lot of good tunes that way.

So, if it's working for me, why stop now?

My current Zune is a Zune 80Gig model - works great, updated to version 3.0 of ZM without a hitch, and all the cool new features came along for the ride. However, my music collection has grown, as has my appetite for video-on-the-go: all of which has pushed me to upgrade to a higher capacity model: the Zune 120. So, when it came down to another $250 outlay, I had to think carefully...

First, there was the bad news from Zuneland this past quarter: Zune revenue declined by a frightening 54%. You might be tempted to blame that on the ailing world economy, until you realize that Apple's iPod sales increase 3% during the same time frame. (I haven't sat down to work out the math, but I bet the numbers come close to balancing out.) People have jumped ship - or, rather, not gotten on board the ship - in record numbers. As a WSJ editorial states, the Zune's market share is now flirting with 0%.

I have a theory about the decline, BTW: it corresponded with the release of the Zune Marketplace 3.0, and corresponding firmware upgrade, at the end of Q3 '08. Unlike Apple or any other media players on the market, Microsoft did not force you to buy a new Zune. All Zunes could be upgraded with the new software, and worked perfectly within the range of their older hardware limitations. (The equalizer software didn't work on the first gen Zunes, for instance, because they had no hardware to support it.) Everything worked: wireless synching, OTA buys from the Zune Marketplace, clicking on FM songs to purchase... all of it. And that may have been the problem...

By respecting their current user base and applying the backward-compatibility ethos which, like it or not, worked as a strategy for PCs, Microsoft may have shot itself in the foot. Who would spend another $250 on a new Zune if you didn't need increased storage capacity and you could get all the cool new features for free? Turns out: no one.

At any rate, even without the sales figure decline, I probably would have made the same call: the weight of the overwhelming market share of the iPod was taking it's toll: my cars have iPod ports, not Zune ports, for instance...and getting something as simple as an armband for the gym was problematic. (As it turns out, the armbands for the iPhones work perfectly with the Zunes...who says we all can't get along?)

So, with a $250 upgrade to make, I set the Zune aside (I won't sell it, I will keep it in a nice little shrine) and headed over to the Apple store to pick up a 120gig 6th generation iPod. (The iPod touch stalled out at 32gig? I crap bigger than 32gig!) I sat down at my laptop, cleaned up my music collection, transferred my podcast subscriptions over to iTunes 8.x, sync'ed it and fired it up.

There it was: my shiny new iPod looking all... well, iPod-ish. After a year of absence, its depressingly the same. Sure, there's cover flow and the sync icon is now orange (ooooo!), but other than that: the system is basically exactly the same. No wifi, no stereo bluetooth, no FM radio... no real changes of any kind. (The damn font still looks like it came from the first generation 64K Macintoshes from the 80's.) Moving from the Zune interface and feature set back to the iPod is, well, a step backwards in look-n-feel and features.

...and then there is iTunes. The "music management" system, and front end to the iTunes store, still looks like it was written by a first year college engineering student as a final project. Same old interface. Oh, sorry, it has "cover flow" too...right. (Do you really use cover flow to find albums, people? Really? I doubt it.) It also has "Genius" now, which doesn't seem to be using the information from the music genome project, like Pandora does, to get its relationships between songs. As best as I can tell does a simple stochastic match between what you've got in your library and what other people have in their libraries to determine what songs you have that possibly sound like other songs you have. (What's a good playlist that sounds like "Dani California?" Well, here's the union of songs that you have in your collection with songs other people have in playlists containing "Dani California." Genius.)

The final affront to my logic centers? iTunes is on Version 8, and it still can't tell that you've put new music into a watched directory. Moving from the Zune Marketplace to iTunes is like trading in the Porsche for a Volkswagen - sure, they are both German cars, but...come on. Seriously? I'm not the only one who thinks so - there's been a lot of articles about ZM lately, such as David Chartier's excellent piece in ARS Technica last week. (David: you almost had me reversing my decision.)

So, market forces win (remember when market competition was a good thing?) and I turn my back on the Zune to move back in with my old girlfriend, Apple. She has a new dress on, and pretty shoes - but I suspect she still can't dance - but everyone seems to think she's just awesome and she's kinda the only one at the party, so I'll give her one more chance.

...hmmm...wait, who's the iRiver girl over there by the bar...?

Throwing in my Two Cents: The Rocket's 2009 Tech Predictions

Nostradamus hat? Check. Crystal ball? Check. Number of my bookie in Jersey? Check. OK, let me throw myself into the circus act of bloggers out there trying to stake some claims over the next 365 days...

Last year I hit a sad 75% on my predictions for 2008 -- let's see if we can crank it up a notch. (I'm also trying to beat the clock and get this crap out before CES this year.)

• Economic recovery begins in early Q3 for the tech and housing industries.
  
  OK, this one goes against nearly every piece of bad press that I have read for the last 6 months, but I still believe it.
  
  Since this is a tech column, we'll leave the housing industry aside for a moment - aside from the incredible resiliency of the the US economy, the tech sector in the US has fallen behind in several key areas: broadband penetration, high-speed wireless penetration, consumer electronic technology, low power technologies (drives, displays, etc), and battery technology. Any entity that misses one industrial or technological innovation leap-frogs over that innovation to the Next Big Thing. (Europe has an unparalleled infrastructure of train tracks, the US creates automobiles and roadways. The US creates unparalleled wired phone lines, Asian-Pacific markets surpass the US for wireless phone systems. Etc etc.)
  
  Being behind in the technology leadership in the above (and other) areas will provide a window of opportunity for investors, entrepreneurs and established tech companies. Many of the missed opportunities above already exist as half-constructed ventures, lab experiments and business plans... execution out of desperation is sure to follow in the first half of 2009.
  
  Update: January 16th - Looks like the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis agrees with me, at least. Thanks to J. McCartie at http://www.volasail.com for bringing this to my attention.
  
  
  
• The Obama Administration revitalizes the tech industry within 6 months of taking office.
  
  Slightly related to the first bullet point, the Obama Administration is on top of things enough to realize what the economic engine in the US really is, and where we are failing on delivering. After 8 years of starved technology ecosystems, Obama will begin to place money and resources into crumbling technical infrastructures, and lower the barrier of entry for new companies to compete against established companies. The creation of a "Chief Technology Officer" position for his administration is the first sign that they will get this right.
  
  
  
• MEMS technology for low power / flexible displays hits the market.
  
  OK, fine - I made this same prediction last year and it didn't pan out - but it's pissing me off that it didn't, so I'm plopping it back on the table, damn it.
  
  Qualcomm's spin off company (Qualcomm MEMS Technology) is one of the companies focusing on low-power displays through nanotechnology. (In this case, small shutters control the filtering of light from LEDs, as opposed to digital filters which require energy.) As mobile devices get more and more complex, power management becomes a ridiculously huge issue. (I thought the iPhone was bad, but the Android phone with its multitasking OS fires off its various radios in the background without you even being aware of it. The power meter looks like a sweep second hand on a watch.) One of the biggest consumers of power in these devices - minus the radios - is the display. QMT's nanotech shutter system produces the same screen brightness for 1/5th the power consumption.
  
  In Cambridge, Mass, eInk has created a flexible, color version of its digital ink technology currently found in the Kindle and the Sony eReader. Just because newspapers and magazines are headed the way of "instant photography," CD publishing, and terrestrial radio doesn't mean that people don't want the content - but reading a newspaper on a laptop or iPhone isn't for everyone, and it doesn't duplicate the newspapers current distribution model. (Wake up, stumble outside, pick up newspaper of the wet pavement.) The first instances of eInk's flexible, color digital "paper" will no doubt be to receive your subscription to the NY Times or Newsweek directly to a portable, always on device. (It will put a crimp in the "taking the paper to the toilet" market, tho.)
  
  My bet (again): expect one or both of these technologies on the market in other OEM's device by Q4.
  
  
  
• Android phone sales hit iPhone numbers before end of year
  
  The T-Mobile G1 is projected to hit 1,000,000 units sold when the final tally for Q4 2008 is done. Keep in mind that the phone has hit the 1M mark having only been on the market since late October 2008, and for sale in only 19 markets because of T-Mobile's late-to-the-game nascent 3G service. There are several more phones expected in the next few months that run on any 3G service out of the box, with form factors that mimic both the iPhone and the Blackberry.
  
  
  
• Digital delivery of home media makes a measurable change in broadcast TV numbers
  I know, everyone is either predicting this or laughing at people who predict it - but you gotta take a stand, baby! We've seen UPN and The WB merge over the past 18 months to the oddly named "The CW." (I miss the Frog, actually.) It's not unreasonable to expect to see additional kerfuffle amongst the traditional TV networks due to erosion of a viable audience base.
  
  The additional changes could be consolidation or dissolution of one of the four remaining broadcasters, or it could be something more subtle - there is a very good chance that this is the year that a major network or studio backed network begins using the internet as a direct means of distribution to it's audiences.
  
  
  
• Significant drops in Blu-Ray player prices combined with content publisher pressure to release existing titles in a new format will push Blu-Ray disc sales past DVD disc sales
  
  I know the debate: did Blu-Ray win too late in this era of media downloads? Do people really want to switch from their DVD collection when upscaling DVD players are just fine?
  
  Well, all things being equal: no. However, content companies are hungry for ways of monetizing existing content in their catalogs. As the price of Blu-Ray players falls below the $120 mark, content publishers will be incented to migrate more of their catalogs over to Blu-Ray in an attempt to sell you the Star Wars Trilogy...again. (This is the same logic that pushed music content publishers to move from album to tape to CD.)
  
  With all those brand spanking new flatscreens out there and sub-$120 Blu-Ray players out there, consumers walking into a Tower Records and faced with their favorite movie or TV show in both DVD and Blu-Ray, which do you think you would choose?
  
  
  
• As Apple pushes deeper into double-digit territory for laptop sales, several serious viral attacks begin in the Mac community. Lack of adequate protection combined with consumer hubris will make the problems significant.
  
  This one I'll take some heat from the fanboys for - but I'll get through it somehow. Again.
  
  You've all heard the argument before: the Apple ecosystem is unprepared for coordinated security attacks on their object of desire - but it's a valid argument. As Apple computers push deeper into double digit territory, they become a target for virus writers. It's not really important that there aren't a lot of virus protection software out there for Mac's, what's more damning is the Mac demographic is woefully under prepared.
  
  Having not grown up in a culture of locking your backdoor, Mac denizens are not in the ritualistic habit of installing virus protection software, updating it and taking all the usual precautions against Very Bad People that windows and linux people have had to deal with for years.
  
  Pwn2Own 2008 people: 2 minutes. MINUTES. 'Nuff said.
  
  
  
• At least one other additional security exploits occur in the basic structure of the aging internet protocol and backbones, forcing a rethink of the way packets are carried over the Internets
  
  It was designed to survive a nuclear attack on the united states... it was not designed to power everything from television sets to light switches. Last year Dan Kaminski discovered and reported a serious flaw deep in the bowels of the stalwart Domain Name System. That code has been in there since Christ was a corporal, and there's more - trust me.
  
  Like bad roads and crumbling bridges built during WWII, the internet substructure is due for an overhaul - and I'm not talking about move from IPv4 to IPv6.
  
  
  
• Windows 7 arrives at the latter-half of the year, but the PR damage done by the mishandling of Vista's public perception plus the stillborn Microsoft marketing campaign PLUS John Hodgman ensures a tepid reception to the new OS.
  
  By all accounts, Windows 7 really is all that. All the reviewers that have advanced copies are tripping over themselves to say lovely things to Leo Laporte on TWiT about Windows 7. "Better." "Faster." "Prettier."
  
  After the public shitfest that was heaped upon Vista over the past two years it isn't gonna matter a wit. The OS will be released to sound of crickets, and the windows community will be stuck with having to support "downgrades" from Windows 7 to XP - and maintain the codeline for Vista at the same time.
  
  
  
• Yahoo breaks up into its original component companies, or at least puts them on the auction block, before Q4.
  
  Yup - it's over kids. Do you Yahoo!?? Uh, no. No you don't. Prepare for recent and distant tech purchases like Flickr, Geocities and Maven to be divested and scattered upon the wind like seeds from a dandelion.

OK, there you go. Take me to task on Dec 31, 2009...but I'm shootin' to beat that 75%, dammit.

Have a great year everyone - let's go make some tech now, shall we?